1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system that includes an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, or a facsimile machine, and an air cleaner.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrophotographic apparatuses are an example of this type of image forming apparatus. In electrophotographic apparatuses, a toner image is formed on the surface of a photosensitive drum by forming an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photosensitive drum, and developing the electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photosensitive drum using toner, and the toner image is fixed onto recording paper by transferring the toner image from the photosensitive drum to the recording paper, and applying heat and pressure to the recording paper.
Such image forming apparatuses are essential office automation equipment, and are installed in most offices, and moreover they are also becoming widespread in homes and hospitals.
Various proposals have been made with respect to image forming apparatuses in order to simplify time consuming operations performed by a user who manages the apparatuses, and suppress an increase in power consumption.
For example, with the technique disclosed in JP 2000-47536A, a master image forming apparatus and a slave image forming apparatus are connected to each other, and assuming that a connected copying function is provided with which when an original is copied by the master apparatus, communication is performed to transmit this original to the slave apparatus, and thereby the same original is copied by the master and slave apparatuses, even if the slave apparatus is in the power off state due to a weekly timer function, the power of the slave apparatus is turned on by disabling the weekly timer function of the slave apparatus when executing the connected copying function. Accordingly, the connected copying function can be executed at any time, without particularly operating the power of the slave apparatus.
Further, with the technique disclosed in JP 2001-117415A, setting is performed so as to switch between a preheating mode for lowering a fixing temperature of a fixing apparatus of an image forming apparatus and a night mode for turning off the heater power of the fixing apparatus, and the heater power of the fixing apparatus is automatically turned off when a transition is made from the preheating mode to the night mode. Thereby, an increase in power consumption can be suppressed.
There has been more cases where air cleaners for purifying the air in the room are installed in offices, homes, hospitals, and the like.
For example, JP 2002-58731A discloses an ion generating apparatus that simultaneously generates positive and negative ions, and the positive and negative ions effectively eliminate airborne bacteria in the air.
However, if an air cleaner is installed in addition to an image forming apparatus, individual space and cost for installing these are necessary, and the user who manages these will have to additionally perform time-consuming operations.